[TriLUG] [OT] TriLUGger on the news

[Scott Chilcote]

I bike commuted between Cary and RTP much of the time between '95 and
'02, when I started working at home most of the time.  In all those 
years I was never touched by a car.  People would get mad and shout once 
and a while, but they honk and yell at each other too.  Once I had a 
sandwich tossed at me.  I also chose to leave the roadway at times 
rather than get squeezed between two passing trucks, but at most it 
delayed me by half a minute.

The two most critical things for me were carefully selecting the route
(I changed employment sites five times) and learning how to ride
effectively in traffic.

Choosing a good cycling route to work is a lot different than what you'd
want to use in a car.  Primary roads (highways) are of course out.
Secondary roads are usually too busy as well, and often have no
shoulders like 54 in Cary and Durham.  You have to take a close look at
a map, and sometimes go exploring to find connectors that have extra
lanes or wide shoulders.

For heading through Morrisville, I'd use roads like Evans, Sheldon, Town
Hall, McKrimmon, and Davis (which has good shoulders most of the way).
If there's a back way to get from one major road to another, like Slater 
Road from Airport Blvd to Emperor/Miami or Hopson from Davis to 55, 
those are the ones I'd try to string together.

Irritated drivers are the worst thing I had to deal with, but choosing
less traveled roads that had room to pass most of the time helped a lot.
  The second part is attitude.  You can ride your bike like a
pedestrian, or you can ride it like just one more vehicle in traffic.
Fit into the flow of traffic and ride predictably as much as possible.
A friend who is an LAB certified cycling instructor uses the phrase
"driving your bike".

It isn't a cure-all.  People in cars get mad at other people in cars, so 
cyclists are hardly immune.  But there is a lot we can due to minimize 
the interactions.

I'll throw in a third item too - having a good rear view mirror and 
learning how to use it while bicycling.  Mine is on my helmet.  It 
provides a lot of confidence to be able to see how the traffic situation 
is developing in advance.  If there's an eighteen wheeler coming from 
behind and another large truck up ahead coming this way, I have the 
option of looking for a place to pull off and subtracting myself from 
the equation.

http://commutebybike.com/cats/commuting-101/
http://www.trilug.org/~chilcote/Bike/rtp-bicycle-commute-FAQ.html

Enjoy the ride.

--
Scott C.